Matt Kelly explains what coronary artery calcium scores mean for your heart health. A rising CAC score doesn't always signal worse outcomes, especially if you're on treatment. Context matters: the same score change means different things depending on your inflammation levels and what you're taking.
Now, we don't have great data on this, but generally what I have seen is if that's the change and you did all the right things to lower all the bad markers in your blood, decrease the inflammation, and you just incidentally raised your CAC score, it doesn't really increase your outcomes that are negative. If your CAC score went from 200 to 300 and you were doing no treatment, then your risk of future coronary events is definitely higher. So the CAC score is a great tool. It's got lots of reasons why it's there. It's a part of a continuum, and appropriate treatment can actually affect it in a way that might make it a little bit higher if you already have a high CAC score.
